Crappy Scanning

[ajuk]

Early this year I went and took some night photos in the center of town, I used a 35mm SLR and a digital compact. The digital compact I used as a light meter to determine what exposure I needed so I wouldn't waste film, Despite what I had been told the setup worked perfectly, not one slide came out under exposed.
Now with the prints I had done in the lab the enlargements I had made from the 35mm slides were much shaper than the enlargements from the compact with less blown out highlights and edge softening.
Now I have my own scanner an Epson 3490, it would seem that the opposite applies, the slide scans look less sharp then the pictures from the Digital camera (although the highlights still look good) I was wondering, I know there is much more detail than that in those slides, I know its cheap, but is it really that bad or am I doing something wrong?

[mwfanelli]

Early this year I went and took some night photos in the center of town, I used a 35mm SLR and a digital compact. The digital compact I used as a light meter to determine what exposure I needed so I wouldn't waste film, Despite what I had been told the setup worked perfectly, not one slide came out under exposed.
Now with the prints I had done in the lab the enlargements I had made from the 35mm slides were much shaper than the enlargements from the compact with less blown out highlights and edge softening.
Now I have my own scanner an Epson 3490, it would seem that the opposite applies, the slide scans look less sharp then the pictures from the Digital camera (although the highlights still look good) I was wondering, I know there is much more detail than that in those slides, I know its cheap, but is it really that bad or am I doing something wrong?

Scanning slides is half science, half art. For slides, you really need a dedicated film scanner to get good results, not a flatbed. When I scanned film in the old days, I also used a custom color profile for my Canon FS4000 film scanner. Film scanners are cheap on the used market these days. Be aware of the dynamic range and play with the scanner controls. Also, all digital requires sharpening. Your digital camera does it "in camera". With a scanner, use an editing program or see if the scanner software has a control for your sharpening your scans. Beware of oversharpening.

FWIW, digital cameras surpassed 35mm film a long time ago. Digital's exposure tolerance is between slides (very picky about exposure) and print film (very tolerant of exposure). Digital will also enlarge better than 35mm film and, of course, gives you magnitudes more control over the result.

Keep playing!

[livin4lax09]

yes but the detail of film (even 35mm) still surpasses almost every one of our digital SLR's, save a couple.

[ajuk]

FWIW, digital cameras surpassed 35mm film a long time ago. Digital's exposure tolerance is between slides (very picky about exposure) and print film (very tolerant of exposure). Digital will also enlarge better than 35mm film and, of course, gives you magnitudes more control over the result.

Keep playing!

I'm really not seeing that, remember this is a compact P&S digital with a tiny sensor, not a DSLR, however I did recently see in a mag where they compared the EOS 30D to scanned (KonMon 5400II) ISO 400 neg film! the neg film had more res but more grain, so I suppose its down to taste. That result surprised even me, I thought that you had to use 100 Speed slide film and then drum scan to out perform a DSLR in such tests, It made me wonder how a comparison with fresh slide film like Provia 400x would have looked.

[mwfanelli]

I'm really not seeing that, remember this is a compact P&S digital with a tiny sensor, not a DSLR, however I did recently see in a mag where they compared the EOS 30D to scanned (KonMon 5400II) ISO 400 neg film! the neg film had more res but more grain, so I suppose its down to taste. That result surprised even me, I thought that you had to use 100 Speed slide film and then drum scan to out perform a DSLR in such tests, It made me wonder how a comparison with fresh slide film like Provia 400x would have looked.

Testing and direct comparison of drum-scanned slide film vs early digital (the old Canon D30) was done on Luminous Landscape many years ago. Digital won that contest. The images were open for anyone to see at Michael's place of business. This test caused a virual riot yet almost no one looked at the actual results.

Digital shows up the optical errors in lenses that film grain covers up. What does film do to fine details? Yes, film can be scanned to get super high file sizes, but the information is redundant. After about 2300 dpi, you are down to grain level. There is no more information lower than that no matter how much you scan or how big the file gets.

I won't get pulled into a film vs digital argument but high end digital now equals and surpasses medium format film. "Reasonably priced" digital (not the expensive digital backs) is moving in on large format for the kill.

Film is fine if that's what one likes. But the IQ of film has been surpassed.

[racingpinarello]

It takes a quality scanner to get the full details of the slide. You don't have to get a drum scanner, but I have a Nikon 8000 scanner and it's my digital camera. It took a considerable learning curve, but I feel that my 35mm and mf scans beat any digital camera.

Never-the-less, a cheap scanner will minimize any advantage of film. This is why digital cameras are so attractive.

To maximize my scanner I am looking into wet mounting with kami fluid for my Nikon 8000 or with an Epson 750 scanner so I can scan my large format transparencies. If you want, send me a 35mm slide and I will scan it for you so you can see the difference. All of my 35mm and MF images on my website are from my scanner. There are no digital images so you can see what good scanning can do for you.

Loren

[freygr]

There are two sides on the film the base and the emulsion. For the best scan you have to have the emulsion side facing the sensor. You have to use software to correctly orientate the image.

A flat bed scanner will not do 35mm slides justice unless you spent over a grand on it.

[ajuk]

Testing and direct comparison of drum-scanned slide film vs early digital (the old Canon D30) was done on Luminous Landscape many years ago. Digital won that contest. The images were open for anyone to see at Michael's place of business. This test caused a virual riot yet almost no one looked at the actual results.

Digital shows up the optical errors in lenses that film grain covers up. What does film do to fine details? Yes, film can be scanned to get super high file sizes, but the information is redundant. After about 2300 dpi, you are down to grain level. There is no more information lower than that no matter how much you scan or how big the file gets.

I won't get pulled into a film vs digital argument but high end digital now equals and surpasses medium format film. "Reasonably priced" digital (not the expensive digital backs) is moving in on large format for the kill.

Film is fine if that's what one likes. But the IQ of film has been surpassed.

I am unable to trust anything on LL to much of there stuff is contradicted elsewhere and the film always looks crappy in there tests unlike others I have seen, and they never drum scanned the film in the test against the D30. I am aware the high end FF DSLRs get close to 645 MF, but from what I have seen in magazine nothing looks as good as 67 or Large format, so I would probably sooner buy one of those. Admittedly these magazines use drum scanners which I cant get too, but at least I know the quality is there if need be.

[ajuk]

There are two sides on the film the base and the emulsion. For the best scan you have to have the emulsion side facing the sensor. You have to use software to correctly orientate the image.

A flat bed scanner will not do 35mm slides justice unless you spent over a grand on it.

Yeah I always do that, Admittedly I know this is a cheap scanner, but I really didn't expect the quality to be this bad! Is there some buried setting to adjust the focus?

[freygr]

Yeah I always do that, Admittedly I know this is a cheap scanner, but I really didn't expect the quality to be this bad! Is there some buried setting to adjust the focus?

Go to the driver and select manual mode, within manual mode there should be adjustments. There are about three or four adjustments in my Twain Driver for the old Epson 1200U I have. I had an older 300 DPI scanner and it did do better scanning than the Epson.

[ajuk]

I don't think my scanner has those.

[freygr]

yes but the detail of film (even 35mm) still surpasses almost every one of our digital SLR's, save a couple.

I agree, You need about 16 mega pixels to just to be equal to one frame of good slide film at ISO 400, and Alot more with lower ISO films. The largest image sensor I know of is a 22 megapixel for 4 by 5 view cameras and that is not a full 4 by 5 image area.

[readingr]

I agree, You need about 16 mega pixels to just to be equal to one frame of good slide film at ISO 400, and Alot more with lower ISO films. The largest image sensor I know of is a 22 megapixel for 4 by 5 view cameras and that is not a full 4 by 5 image area.

Try Hasselblad H3D with 39 Megapixel sensor.

Roger